The strongest state net neutrality bill in the nation passed a key test yesterday when a California Senate committee approved it over the objections of AT&T and the cable lobby. AT&T claimed that the rules aren’t needed because it already follows its own net neutrality guidelines, while a cable lobbyist told senators that large corporate users shouldn’t get “free access” to consumer broadband networks.

The California legislation would replicate the US-wide bans on blocking, throttling, and paid prioritization that were implemented by the FCC in 2015, and it would go beyond the FCC rules with a ban on paid data-cap exemptions. The FCC passed its rules under Democratic leadership but voted to eliminate them after Republican Ajit Pai took over the chairmanship.

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Wiener’s legislation is “the only state-level bill that fully restores all of the 2015 net neutrality protections,” Stanford law professor Barbara van Schewick told the committee. “That’s why it’s widely viewed as a net neutrality model bill, and that’s why [former] FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, who literally wrote the 2015 order, supports this bill.”

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“Today, the Internet is a space where every Californian, no matter the color of their skin or the size of their wallets, has equal chance of reaching people online,” van Schewick told the committee shortly before the vote. “It’s a space where we the people—not AT&T and Comcast—determine what succeeds in our economy, our culture, and our democracy. I hope you will vote to keep it that way.”